Better black and white conversions with Lightroom

Digital photography has certainly revolutionized a lot of the typical (read: film) photography workflow, but certain questions keep popping up. I’m often asked by photographers what the best method is for shooting in black and white.

While some cameras do have a black and white conversion mode, allowing you to shoot that way in-camera, it’s usually not the best choice. First of all – who knows what pictures you want in B&W and which you want in color at the time you shoot? Typically (or ideally) you want to make that decision after the fact, when you’ve had time to mentally process the image. Second, the conversion in-camera is essentially just a desaturation of the image, which is not the best way to get a good quality monochrome image. It will remove all the color, but those “greys” that result from desaturating usually have a lack of contrast or tonal panache.

Getting great black and whites is a matter of some subtle manipulation, and Adobe Lightroom is one of the best (and most straight forward) pieces of software with which to achieve this. I just love Lightroom.

Martin Evening is a studio and fashion photographer who works closely with Adobe, and over at the Lightroom News blog he explains (in video) how to best convert a color image to black and white. Check it out!